Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/243

Rh The husband, thus left alone, quitted his own residence and abode with his father-in-law. In the mean time, Alexius remained a beggar in the porch of St. Mary's church for the space of seventeen years; until at length the image of the Virgin, which stood within the sacred edifice said to the warden, "Cause that Man of God to enter the sanctuary: for he is worthy of the kingdom of Heaven, upon whom the spirit of God rests. His prayer ascends like incense to the throne of Grace." But the warden knew not of whom she spake, and said, "Is that the man, who sits at the entrance of the porch?" The Virgin answering in the affirmative, he was immediately brought in. Now a circumstance of this extraordinary nature soon attracted remark; and the veneration with which they began to consider Alexius, approached almost to adoration. But he despised human glory, and entering a ship, set sail for Tarsus, in Cilicia; but, the providence of God so ordered, that a violent tempest carried them into a Roman